


Unbreakable Spirit

by sonicsora



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2003)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Blood and Torture, Emotional Manipulation, Family Feels, Gen, Interrogation, Kidnapped, Mutants, Ninja Tribunal Season, Psychological Torture, Sad with a Happy Ending, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 20:44:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20141725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonicsora/pseuds/sonicsora
Summary: Hamato Splinter is not a man who breaks easily, much less under the threat of torture. Not that Oroku Saki hasn't tried his best to wring the information about the Ninja Tribunal out of him.





	Unbreakable Spirit

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Fredrick for the awesome idea!
> 
> This is set after the Ninja Tribunal season, if Shredder somehow survived. shhh don't ask questions, just enjoy the ride.

His ears flick at the sound of footsteps coming down the hall, the sound is faint for the moment, but Splinter finds it almost impossible to ignore in the heavy silence hanging in the air around him. Even the guards that were meant to be stationed by the door had left. Splinter wagers they must be changing shifts. He had grown used to hearing their breathing by the doorway. Without their presence things feel deadly still, still enough he can hear his own heartbeat in his ears. 

The mutant rat sits up slowly, holding his head high as he settles his bound hands in his lap. Meditation stance is a familiar way to settle himself into. The manacles around his wrist weigh him down from much movement. The chains leading back to the wall and the crank mechanism built into the wall itself means his reach is limited. 

’_One must face his enemies head on to know their true mettle._’ Runs through the rat's mind as he waits. The clicking of heavy boots grows louder as the man walks and eventually, the shadow of his family’s greatest enemy looms on the walls preceding the man himself. An enemy that haunts them even as his sons grow into adulthood.

“Even now you face me?” He could almost detect respect in the man’s voice. Splinter could almost laugh at it if he wasn’t trying to save energy. He needed to reserve energy, to reserve enough to survive this. 

He would return to his sons. 

He would always return to his sons. 

“Do you wish to speak again or merely stare?” His voice is rough at the edges, likely to go hoarse. Screaming had done a fair job of leaving his voice wrecked. “I could easily be using this time for meditation.” 

The Utrom gives a disgusted sound, the door opens with a creek as the man steps through. He wears his exo-suit dressed to its fullest. He appears as a man opposed to the actual being he is. 

His ears twitch at the jingling of keys before the keyring disappear back into Shredder’s armor. The same place every time. Patterns had taken root, Shredder was a man of patterns. 

“Such cockiness for a _rat_.” 

Splinter’s whiskers twitch and he settles on silence. His tail shifts against the cold stone floor as Shredder walks over to him. Splinter holds the man’s gaze before it is broken by Shredder as the man begins to circle him. The mutant rat makes not a move even as he hears the rhythmic sound of boots against stone. 

The feeling of familiar gauntlet blade tips ghost over tattered fabric of the mutant’s robes. He had once feared these blades, had nightmares of them cutting his sons down. Now, now they are simply cold steel that moves across him. Nothing but a tool for a man who cannot die. 

“Your silence does you no favors, mutant. This could all end so easily if you spoke.” The tips press down against the rat’s shoulder blades. It drags through fabric and fur, drawing blood to the surface as pressure is slowly applied. He reopens wounds that have yet to heal over completely. “You owe not the Tribunal your loyalty.” 

A boot settles against his tail, a heel grinding into bone and skin. The rat’s ears flick against his skull, tension settling in his shoulders. The torture remains yet the same, but his body still reacts. 

“For your son's sake, you should speak. I’m sure they would be aggrieved to lose you.” The man sneers down at the rodent. The lack of response earns an irritated sound from the armor-clad man. Splinter simply focuses on his breathing, looking to center himself and lose traction of where his body begins and his spirit ends. 

“Were you not aggrieved when your beloved son, Leonardo fell to my hand? How you ran in terror. His belief he could defeat me was laughable. How he called out for you is just the same.” The words cut far more deeply than the man’s blades do. The memory makes the rat’s hands tighten in his lap, years had passed since that night but the ache in his heart lingers. How many times has his family been in danger because of this one man? 

“Do you not remember how I’ve felled them? How fear and pain has settled on their faces?” The blade tips move to brush against the rat’s cheek. The motion is light, but cuts away fur. Clumps of sticky red tinted fur has settled upon the floor around him. 

“Like any father, I’m sure you cannot be rid of it in your mind. No matter how you run, no matter where you hide, we shall always clash and your boys shall fall.” The tip of his tail twitches, his hands tighten into fists against his knees but he does not move. He will not give the Utrom the satisfaction of his anger or grief. He deserves nothing but the silence. 

“The night where your home became mere rubble? How long do you wager until my daughter or I find it again?” Shredder laughs lowly, adding more pressure to the rat’s tail. The pain makes the tail jerk, but Splinter cannot move it away. “What will your son’s faces hold but terror as they lose another bastion of safety?” 

Every failure, every hurt, every near death experience feels like a weight around the rat’s neck. There is always more he could do for his sons. There will always be more he will do for them. He wants peace for them. He wants joy for his children, not, more of Shredder or Karai. 

The taunting continues, even as Splinter remains silent. “How long do you think New York will be safe for you and your little family, rodent? How many holes do you think you can hide in?” 

It is an old fear Shredder has tapped into. One Splinter himself cannot deny. Will the world find them? How long until The Foot Clan themselves scour every inch of New York to find where they live? His breath shakes marginally before he can entirely smooth it away.

“Ah, did I hit a nerve, rodent?” The cockiness in his voice is a reminder that Splinter has shown too much. 

The ninjitsu master does not speak, steadying himself and slowing his breathing to something relaxed as he can make it. Even as a blade shifts across his body, tearing into the tattered fabric of his robes further. 

“Tell me, do you fear for your sons? Do you know what I could do to them?” A gloved hand cups his cheek but Splinter does not look at him. “I could easily pry their shells from their bodies and see just how everything works.” The hand releases his face. “If you tell me what you know, they can be spared that indignity of death.” 

Splinter takes in a slow breath, looking in the direction of the man taunting him. Oroku Saki’s lips curl into a twisted cruel smirk. He seems so satisfied with himself. Splinter cannot let that much stand.

“You certainly seem to enjoy the sound of your own voice.” He answers lowly back. The blow that follows his words leaves Splinter’s ears ringing, but it’s all the better for the rage on the man’s robotic face. The next blow is just the same, but Splinter gives a shaky laugh even as blood stains his teeth and coats the inside of his mouth. 

He certainly can’t hear his own words, but the look on the man’s face is enough to show Shredder heard them well enough. There was enough visible rage, the mutant could only guess how the Utrom controlling the body looked. 

“A man who speaks so much, yet has so little to say, truly a tragedy.” 

The final blow leaves the rat unconscious, but victorious. 

He awakens later tasting blood in the back of his throat, but wheezing low laughter that makes his ribs ache desperately. He flicks his gaze to the doorway, the fluorescent lights flicker in the hallway and offer him no idea of the time. He is certain enough days have passed, how many remains nebulous. He can hear the steady breathing of the two men stationed by the doorway. 

A jug of water is set just out of his range of reach. His claws could likely barely scrape at the handle if he were to try for it. He can suspect it’ll stay just out of reach until he manages to offer some answers. 

Shredder wishes to continue this dance until Splinter finally acknowledges him. The rat has no intention of giving the Utrom anything worthwhile. The Ninja Tribunal have not earned his loyalty, but his friendship with the Ancient One is worth more than they. The Ninja Tribunal have caused him grief, but even they do not deserve Ch'rell’s rage crashing down on them. Especially not when the possibility of a good friend could be caught in the crossfire. 

Instead he simply lay on the cold stone, hands settling over his chest as he closes his eyes. Pain thrums through him, from dull aches to new fresh cuts that sting and burn against the dirty floor he lays upon. He attempts to raise a hand to his face, expecting the usual quick short yank of resistance. Instead he realizes he has more maneuverability, he can raise his hand over his head whilst laying. The mutant rat realizes quickly enough it means when seated he will have a bit more range as well. He takes the added maneuverability to check more serious injures the best he can. It is all shallow examination given his current state. 

If his hands weren’t tied tightly into a flat palm with fabric and leather he could examine himself to see how deep the damage goes. 

As of now he’s stuck simply enduring. 

The thought makes him chuckle, he had raised four sons. Endurance was certainly something he had in droves to some extent. Four boys had never been easy, but he had no regrets in raising them, in caring for those four. They were his heart in so many ways. 

Splinter lets his mind meander, thinking of his sons, of the last time he saw them before this. He exhales slowly wondering just how his sons were doing. Leonardo must be worried, Raphael driving himself to the brinks of his own endurance, Michaelangelo must be trying to cheer his siblings during a dark time, and of course Donatello would be plotting every course of action they could take. Ms. O’Neil and Mr. Jones would likely be aiding them. 

Even now he was relieved his sons had friends, real friends. They have more than just an old rat who practices ninjitsu. They’ve always deserved more, far more than he could give them. 

His mind turns over the man’s words. There isn’t much else to think on at times but the only other voice he hears beyond his own. The threats from Shredder make him sick, disgusted, but leaves a nettle of worry sharply digging into his heart. 

“My sons-” Escapes him before he can catch the words, his hands shaking against his chest. 

He hates the way the man’s words linger, like a poison spreading through him wanting to taint everything. The mutant rat sucks in a short choppy breath as he slowly forces himself up into a meditation position, knees tucked under him, tail curled close to his body, and hands settled against his lap. 

Splinter can not let Ch'rell’s words affect him. 

He is the waves lapping against the shore, the tide the sweeps away sand in its wake. The steady force that erodes rocks slowly but surely. He is not merely a mutant, he is more. Meditation comes easily, a familiar way of centering himself when the world feels turbulent. He recenters himself with the steady flow of meditation. 

He is only broken from meditation by the sound of jingling keys. The mutant rat opens his eyes gaze drifting towards the iron barred doorway. Company had arrived, unwanted company but company nonetheless. Splinter sits up a little taller, even if the injuries on his back twinges at the movement. His guess of having more maneuverability when seated is correct. He resists his urge to experiment just yet, keeping his hands steadied in his lap.

The Shredder walks in, keys jingling at his hip. His ears twitch at the sound, tracking it along with the sound of boots circling him. It is the same dance as it always is, Shredder grilling him for information, paired with threats. He offers nothing in response to the taunts, threats, and promises of safety, he ends up bodily held against a wall. The gauntlet edge cuts into his throat. Blood wells to the surface over fur, dribbling down his neck onto his chest. One hand clutches at the gauntlet desperately, the other moves swiftly enough Ch'rell notices not a thing. 

“Speak, or never speak again, rodent!” Roars the Utrom, applying more and more pressure until Splinter can only choke out, “_Korea_.” He manages to choke out a city name. A city he knows is long abandoned. A place where no one will be hurt. 

He must have sounded convincing enough Shredder steps away, the rat slumps onto the ground, breathing heavily through his mouth as he coughs. Ch'rell laughs at Splinter’s suffer shaking blood from his gauntlet blades carelessly. Splinter flinches mildly at flicks of his own blood splattering against his face. “You’ve done well, rat. I knew you’d eventually come to see things my way.” The man sneers down at Splinter before he makes his leave. 

Splinter merely lays where he was dropped for a good while, watching the doorway as he waits. He only rises once the guards have left to change shifts. The keys jingle in his hand as he unlocks the manacles around his wrists. He stands slowly, balancing his weight against the walls as he walks to the doorway. 

It’s almost funny to know the key works for the door as well. Ch'rell truly never learns a lesson from any of their encounters. It is time to go home. Splinter finds the shadows easily and disappears into them before an alarm can even be raised.


End file.
